I was brought up in a religious Zionist home with a father as a Rabbi. Despite this, by the age of 16, I realised that Marxism, which believes in the unity of the working class and universal principles of solidarity, was incompatible with Zionism which sees the unity of Jews as its guiding principle. To Zionism there is only one question: ‘is it good for the Jews’.

The development of Unionism and Zionism followed very similar lines. In 1921 Ireland was partitioned. In 1920 the Mandate of Palestine effectively began. The Colonial Secretary presiding over the birth of both Unionism and Zionism was Winston Churchill.

Zionism was the bastard cousin of Irish Unionism. As Sir Ronald Storrs, the first Military Governor of Jerusalem explained, ‘A Jewish State will be for England a little, loyal Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism’.

But I forget. Gilheaney’s concern is not Israel or Zionism but anti-Semitism. The fact that he is a member of an overtly pro-Zionist organisation is merely coincidental. He tells us that ‘the Jewish charity, the Community Security Trust’ has reported an increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the first 6 months of the year from 810 to 892, nearly all of which is due to Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party. Corbyn:

if not anti-Semitic himself, (he) has enabled anti-Semitism to grow on his watch just as Donald Trump has enabled and assisted in the growth of racism and race prejudice since becoming President of the USA.

Truly there is a veritable pogrom going on in Britain today, all of which is Corbyn’s fault.

It is difficult to know whether or not to laugh or cry at this nonsense. The reality is that there is probably less anti-Semitism today in Britain than there has ever been. The figures of the CST have little or no basis in fact. They are literally plucked out of thin air. You have more chance of accuracy if you span the wheel in a game of roulette than relying on the CST.

In its Anti-Semitic Incidents Report for January-June 2019 the CST informed us that the 892 anti-Semitic incidents recorded were the highest ever for any six months period. It explained that this ‘can partly be attributed to increasing reports of online expressions of antisemitism.’ An online expression of anti-Semitism, such as a Tweet or Facebook post has now become an anti-Semitic incident. If only the victims of the Kishinev and Odessa pogroms in Russia had been so lucky. As far as I know no one has ever died from a tweet!

One person can cause a Twitter storm. There is no possible way in which the level of racism in society can be measured by engaging in a social media lucky dip. It’s completely impressionistic.

CST are being wholly disingenuous spinning their statistics in order to reach the desired conclusions. They explain that of the 892 incidents of anti-Semitism, no less than 323 of them consisted of online anti-Semitism, a full 36%. In 2018, for the same period, there were 221 such incidents, i.e. 27%. If you strip out on line anti-Semitism altogether then there has been a decrease in anti-Semitism over the past year from 589 to 569.

The CST records 85 assaults in the first six months of 2019 compared to 62 the previous year, an increase of 37%. The strange thing is that not one of these assaults were classified as ‘extreme’ i.e. causing injury or a threat to someone’s life. Yet when it comes to similar statistics for racial attacks, the number of serious incidents of violence compared to less serious or trivial assaults is about one-third. Even more strange the number of assaults compared to racial incidents generally is also of the order of one-third, so if the 892 anti-Semitic incidents were genuine then one would expect something like 300 not 85 assaults.

Why is it that the CST’s statistics are out of kilter with all other measures of racial incidents? Is it because they are being driven by a hidden political agenda or special interests or indeed that the CST is more assiduous in collecting statistics? We don’t know because the CST, although in receipt of large amounts of public money is completely unaccountable. There is no way of knowing whether what they call ‘anti-Semitism’ is driven by a Zionist/pro-Israel agenda.

It would for example be interesting to know how many of these 85 assaults were recorded as crimes or subject to any form of prosecution? The answer is we don’t know, nor do we know what the criteria is for ‘abusive incidents’ and how they are distinguished from normal political argument. The CST is not a politically neutral organisation. It is openly Zionist. It sees as part of its remit collecting information on Jewish anti-Zionists and keeping anti-Zionists out of Zionist meetings. It compiles files on Jewish anti-Zionists (I obtained a massive file when I made a Subject Access Request a few years ago).

The CST finds it difficult to make a distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. It says that they do not ‘not consider criticism of Israel or Zionism inherently antisemitic’ which is a strange way to put it. In other words anti-Zionism is usually anti-Semitic! Whatever else you could accuse the CST of it’s not political neutrality.

The CST admits that:

There were 203 allusions to Israel, the Middle East or Zionism, used in antisemitic incidents recorded by CST, of which 18 directly compared or equated Israel with the Nazis.’

The truth is that a decrease in anti-Semitism wouldn’t serve CST’s purposes. CST is not merely a Zionist organisation, it is effectively a para-state body. It has close links to both the British and Israeli states. The Home Office gave it 13.4 million in 2018. See para. s.6.2 of its own annual report ‘Working with the Government, Civil Servants and the Police’.

When the CST’s Security Director Carol Laser retired ‘Scotland Yard presented her with a commendation usually reserved for officers shot in the line of duty.’ As Ms Laser admitted ‘"Nothing comes higher than the protection around the Israelis.’

However when Raed Saleh, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Northern Israel came to visit Britain in 2011 he was greeted by an exclusion order and an attempt by Theresa May to deport him. The ‘evidence’ against him was provided by the CST. This evidence included a poem of his which had been doctored to include words relating to Jews. Channel 4 reported:

The government’s main source of information was from the Jewish run Community Security Trust (CST). The CST has denied that it in any way misled the government. The group has also expressed disappointment that the exclusion order has been overturned.

It is trite knowledge to say that Zionists use ‘anti-Semitism’ as a propaganda weapon against their opponents. This is why according to Tony Lerman, the founder of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Mossad (MI6), with which the CST has close links, took over the monitoring and collation of anti-Semitism statistics.

Lerman was later forced to resign from his post because of his views. He documented what happened in Antisemitism Redefined [‘On Anti-Semitism’ Haymarket Books, 2017].

I had close personal experience of the role the Mossad played in establishing Israeli hegemony over the monitoring and combating of antisemitism. While I was director of the Institute of Jewish Affairs (IJA) and its successor, the 'Institute for Jewish Policy Research OPR) in the 1990s, I founded and was principal editor of the annual Antisemitism World Report... The London Mossad representative dealing with antisemitism made it clear to me that they were very unhappy about our independent operation and then tried to pressure us into either ceasing publication or merging our report with one that the then new Project for the Study of Antisemitism at Tel Aviv University, headed by Professor Dina Porat and part-financed by the Mossad, was beginning to produce.

What possible reason could there be for Mossad to take over responsibility for the monitoring of anti-Semitism in Jewish communities abroad? Can you imagine MI6 getting involved in the race relations business in Britain? There is only one explanation and it is that ‘anti-Semitism’ is a vital part of the political defence of Israel.

The statistics of anti-Semitism compiled by the CST are not worth the paper they are written on. They are part of Israel’s propaganda war against its adversaries. To paraphrase Mark Twain, there are lies, damn lies and CST statistics.

Gilheany says that ‘one of the kernels of the Labour anti-Semitism dispute relates to Israel and Zionism’ and that the document at the heart of it is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism.

Which is like saying that opposition to the British presence in Ireland makes you an anti-British racist or that support for a United Ireland means you are anti-Protestant. Zionism like Unionism is a political not a racial project and opposition to them is political not racial.

The IHRA ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism is a racist’s charter. Why does one even need a definition unless there is a hidden agenda? When my dad joined 100,000 Jews and non-Jews at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 to stop Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists marching through the Jewish East End of London he didn’t need a definition of anti-Semitism to know what anti-Semitism is! It’s a complete nonsense.

The IHRA isn’t even a definition. It’s 500+ words long. The Oxford English Dictionary definition of anti-Semitism, ‘hostility to or prejudice against Jews’ is just 6 words. The IHRA is so long because that’s how much it takes to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

The IHRA has 11 examples of ‘anti-Semitism’, seven of which refer to Israel. For example ‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.’ In Nazi Germany mobs chanted Death to the Jews. In Israel mobs chant Death to the Arabs. Why is this anti-Semitic? Is Ze’ev Sternhell, a childhood survivor of a Polish Ghetto an anti-Semite for writing about Israel’s ‘Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin to Early Nazism.’

Another example of ‘anti-Semitism’ is ‘Applying double standards by requiring of it[Israel] a behaviour not demanded or expected of any other democratic nation.’ Which begs the question, is Israel a democratic state? Israel is an ethnocracy not a democracy. Its Jewish majority was created out of the forced expulsion of the native Palestinians. If you don’t accept that Israel is democratic then you are declared ‘anti-Semitic’. There was a time when anti-Semitism was about hating Jews, not criticising Israel or Zionism.

According to the IHRA ‘Denial of the right of the Jewish people to self-determination’ is anti-Semitic. Gilheany argues that if you oppose the right of every other national minority, from the Kurds to the Catalans, to an independent state then you ‘would not be seen as a priori anti-Semitic’. This is not true but is in any case irrelevant.

It used to be the case when it was those who argued that Jews constituted a separate nation who were condemned as anti-Semites. Jews argued that they were British and Jewish by religion. The Zionist belief that Jews are strangers whose ‘real home’ is in Israel was seen as a form of Jewish anti-Semitism. Indeed this is the real purpose of this false and confected ‘anti-Semitism’. To persuade Jews that they should ‘return’ to Israel.

Lucien Wolfe, who was Secretary of the Conjoint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies wrote, during the negotiations around the Balfour Declaration in 1917 that:

I have spent most of my life in combating these very doctrines, when presented to me in the form of anti-Semitism, and I can only regard them as the more dangerous when they come to me in the guise of Zionism. They constitute a capitulation to our enemies, which has absolutely no justification in history, ethnology or the facts of everyday life, and if they were admitted by the Jewish people as a whole, the result would only be that the terrible situation of our coreligionists in Russia and Romania would become the common lot of Jewry throughout the world.

As Isaac Deutscher wrote in The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays:

the great majority of East European Jews were, (up to the outbreak of the second World War) opposed to Zionism … the most fanatical enemies of Zionism were precisely the workers, those who spoke Yiddish … they were the most determined opponents of the idea of an emigration from East Europe to Palestine … in the idea of an evacuation, of an exodus from the countries in which they, had their homes and in which their ancestors had lived for centuries, the anti-Zionists saw an abdication of their rights, a surrender to anti-Semitism. To them anti-Semitism seemed to triumph in Zionism, which recognised the legitimacy and the validity of the old cry ‘Jews get out!' The Zionists were agreeing to get out.

As anti-Semitism increased in Poland so did support for Zionism wane. In the last local elections in 1938, out of the 20 Jewish Council seats in Warsaw 17 were won by the anti-Zionist Bund and just one by the Zionists. Everywhere in Poland it was the same story. Zionism was seen as a capitulation to anti-Semitism.

Gilheany’s conspiracy theories about Stalinism and the Soviet Union lying behind the revelations of Nazi-Zionist collaboration are absurd. It wasn’t Stalin who was responsible for the fall of the second Sharrett government in Israel in 1955 but the verdict in the Kasztner libel trial, brought as a result of the accusations of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust against the leader of Hungarian Zionism that his collaboration had led to the deportation of thousands of Hungarian Jews. It is a fact, amply documented by Zionist historians such as Francis Nicosia and Lucy Dawidowicz, that the Zionists were the favoured Jews of the Nazis, the ones who traded with them not campaigned against them.

Zionism is and always has been a reactionary movement and ideology. Today that should be clear to all when the best friends of Israel are anti-Semitic leaders like Trump, Orban and Duterte. When even the neo-Nazi founder of the alt-Right in the United States, Richard Spencer openly boasts that he is a White Zionist and Netanyahu’s own son pens an anti-Semitic cartoon of George Soros that is immediately republished by David Duke of the KKK then it should be clear why Gilheany’s attempts to portray the Left as anti-Semitic are, to quote Neil Young, pissing in the wind … Socialist Zionism was always an oxymoron, today it is simply a bad joke.

I was brought up in a religious Zionist home with a father as a Rabbi. Despite this, by the age of 16, I realised that Marxism, which believes in the unity of the working class and universal principles of solidarity, was incompatible with Zionism which sees the unity of Jews as its guiding principle. To Zionism there is only one question: ‘is it good for the Jews’.

The development of Unionism and Zionism followed very similar lines. In 1921 Ireland was partitioned. In 1920 the Mandate of Palestine effectively began. The Colonial Secretary presiding over the birth of both Unionism and Zionism was Winston Churchill.

Zionism was the bastard cousin of Irish Unionism. As Sir Ronald Storrs, the first Military Governor of Jerusalem explained, ‘A Jewish State will be for England a little, loyal Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism’.

But I forget. Gilheaney’s concern is not Israel or Zionism but anti-Semitism. The fact that he is a member of an overtly pro-Zionist organisation is merely coincidental. He tells us that ‘the Jewish charity, the Community Security Trust’ has reported an increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the first 6 months of the year from 810 to 892, nearly all of which is due to Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party. Corbyn:

if not anti-Semitic himself, (he) has enabled anti-Semitism to grow on his watch just as Donald Trump has enabled and assisted in the growth of racism and race prejudice since becoming President of the USA.

Truly there is a veritable pogrom going on in Britain today, all of which is Corbyn’s fault.

It is difficult to know whether or not to laugh or cry at this nonsense. The reality is that there is probably less anti-Semitism today in Britain than there has ever been. The figures of the CST have little or no basis in fact. They are literally plucked out of thin air. You have more chance of accuracy if you span the wheel in a game of roulette than relying on the CST.

In its Anti-Semitic Incidents Report for January-June 2019 the CST informed us that the 892 anti-Semitic incidents recorded were the highest ever for any six months period. It explained that this ‘can partly be attributed to increasing reports of online expressions of antisemitism.’ An online expression of anti-Semitism, such as a Tweet or Facebook post has now become an anti-Semitic incident. If only the victims of the Kishinev and Odessa pogroms in Russia had been so lucky. As far as I know no one has ever died from a tweet!

One person can cause a Twitter storm. There is no possible way in which the level of racism in society can be measured by engaging in a social media lucky dip. It’s completely impressionistic.

CST are being wholly disingenuous spinning their statistics in order to reach the desired conclusions. They explain that of the 892 incidents of anti-Semitism, no less than 323 of them consisted of online anti-Semitism, a full 36%. In 2018, for the same period, there were 221 such incidents, i.e. 27%. If you strip out on line anti-Semitism altogether then there has been a decrease in anti-Semitism over the past year from 589 to 569.

The CST records 85 assaults in the first six months of 2019 compared to 62 the previous year, an increase of 37%. The strange thing is that not one of these assaults were classified as ‘extreme’ i.e. causing injury or a threat to someone’s life. Yet when it comes to similar statistics for racial attacks, the number of serious incidents of violence compared to less serious or trivial assaults is about one-third. Even more strange the number of assaults compared to racial incidents generally is also of the order of one-third, so if the 892 anti-Semitic incidents were genuine then one would expect something like 300 not 85 assaults.

Why is it that the CST’s statistics are out of kilter with all other measures of racial incidents? Is it because they are being driven by a hidden political agenda or special interests or indeed that the CST is more assiduous in collecting statistics? We don’t know because the CST, although in receipt of large amounts of public money is completely unaccountable. There is no way of knowing whether what they call ‘anti-Semitism’ is driven by a Zionist/pro-Israel agenda.

It would for example be interesting to know how many of these 85 assaults were recorded as crimes or subject to any form of prosecution? The answer is we don’t know, nor do we know what the criteria is for ‘abusive incidents’ and how they are distinguished from normal political argument. The CST is not a politically neutral organisation. It is openly Zionist. It sees as part of its remit collecting information on Jewish anti-Zionists and keeping anti-Zionists out of Zionist meetings. It compiles files on Jewish anti-Zionists (I obtained a massive file when I made a Subject Access Request a few years ago).

The CST finds it difficult to make a distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. It says that they do not ‘not consider criticism of Israel or Zionism inherently antisemitic’ which is a strange way to put it. In other words anti-Zionism is usually anti-Semitic! Whatever else you could accuse the CST of it’s not political neutrality.

The CST admits that:

There were 203 allusions to Israel, the Middle East or Zionism, used in antisemitic incidents recorded by CST, of which 18 directly compared or equated Israel with the Nazis.’

The truth is that a decrease in anti-Semitism wouldn’t serve CST’s purposes. CST is not merely a Zionist organisation, it is effectively a para-state body. It has close links to both the British and Israeli states. The Home Office gave it 13.4 million in 2018. See para. s.6.2 of its own annual report ‘Working with the Government, Civil Servants and the Police’.

When the CST’s Security Director Carol Laser retired ‘Scotland Yard presented her with a commendation usually reserved for officers shot in the line of duty.’ As Ms Laser admitted ‘"Nothing comes higher than the protection around the Israelis.’

However when Raed Saleh, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Northern Israel came to visit Britain in 2011 he was greeted by an exclusion order and an attempt by Theresa May to deport him. The ‘evidence’ against him was provided by the CST. This evidence included a poem of his which had been doctored to include words relating to Jews. Channel 4 reported:

The government’s main source of information was from the Jewish run Community Security Trust (CST). The CST has denied that it in any way misled the government. The group has also expressed disappointment that the exclusion order has been overturned.

It is trite knowledge to say that Zionists use ‘anti-Semitism’ as a propaganda weapon against their opponents. This is why according to Tony Lerman, the founder of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Mossad (MI6), with which the CST has close links, took over the monitoring and collation of anti-Semitism statistics.

Lerman was later forced to resign from his post because of his views. He documented what happened in Antisemitism Redefined [‘On Anti-Semitism’ Haymarket Books, 2017].

I had close personal experience of the role the Mossad played in establishing Israeli hegemony over the monitoring and combating of antisemitism. While I was director of the Institute of Jewish Affairs (IJA) and its successor, the 'Institute for Jewish Policy Research OPR) in the 1990s, I founded and was principal editor of the annual Antisemitism World Report... The London Mossad representative dealing with antisemitism made it clear to me that they were very unhappy about our independent operation and then tried to pressure us into either ceasing publication or merging our report with one that the then new Project for the Study of Antisemitism at Tel Aviv University, headed by Professor Dina Porat and part-financed by the Mossad, was beginning to produce.

What possible reason could there be for Mossad to take over responsibility for the monitoring of anti-Semitism in Jewish communities abroad? Can you imagine MI6 getting involved in the race relations business in Britain? There is only one explanation and it is that ‘anti-Semitism’ is a vital part of the political defence of Israel.

The statistics of anti-Semitism compiled by the CST are not worth the paper they are written on. They are part of Israel’s propaganda war against its adversaries. To paraphrase Mark Twain, there are lies, damn lies and CST statistics.

Gilheany says that ‘one of the kernels of the Labour anti-Semitism dispute relates to Israel and Zionism’ and that the document at the heart of it is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism.

Which is like saying that opposition to the British presence in Ireland makes you an anti-British racist or that support for a United Ireland means you are anti-Protestant. Zionism like Unionism is a political not a racial project and opposition to them is political not racial.

The IHRA ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism is a racist’s charter. Why does one even need a definition unless there is a hidden agenda? When my dad joined 100,000 Jews and non-Jews at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 to stop Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists marching through the Jewish East End of London he didn’t need a definition of anti-Semitism to know what anti-Semitism is! It’s a complete nonsense.

The IHRA isn’t even a definition. It’s 500+ words long. The Oxford English Dictionary definition of anti-Semitism, ‘hostility to or prejudice against Jews’ is just 6 words. The IHRA is so long because that’s how much it takes to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

The IHRA has 11 examples of ‘anti-Semitism’, seven of which refer to Israel. For example ‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.’ In Nazi Germany mobs chanted Death to the Jews. In Israel mobs chant Death to the Arabs. Why is this anti-Semitic? Is Ze’ev Sternhell, a childhood survivor of a Polish Ghetto an anti-Semite for writing about Israel’s ‘Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin to Early Nazism.’

Another example of ‘anti-Semitism’ is ‘Applying double standards by requiring of it[Israel] a behaviour not demanded or expected of any other democratic nation.’ Which begs the question, is Israel a democratic state? Israel is an ethnocracy not a democracy. Its Jewish majority was created out of the forced expulsion of the native Palestinians. If you don’t accept that Israel is democratic then you are declared ‘anti-Semitic’. There was a time when anti-Semitism was about hating Jews, not criticising Israel or Zionism.

According to the IHRA ‘Denial of the right of the Jewish people to self-determination’ is anti-Semitic. Gilheany argues that if you oppose the right of every other national minority, from the Kurds to the Catalans, to an independent state then you ‘would not be seen as a priori anti-Semitic’. This is not true but is in any case irrelevant.

It used to be the case when it was those who argued that Jews constituted a separate nation who were condemned as anti-Semites. Jews argued that they were British and Jewish by religion. The Zionist belief that Jews are strangers whose ‘real home’ is in Israel was seen as a form of Jewish anti-Semitism. Indeed this is the real purpose of this false and confected ‘anti-Semitism’. To persuade Jews that they should ‘return’ to Israel.

Lucien Wolfe, who was Secretary of the Conjoint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies wrote, during the negotiations around the Balfour Declaration in 1917 that:

I have spent most of my life in combating these very doctrines, when presented to me in the form of anti-Semitism, and I can only regard them as the more dangerous when they come to me in the guise of Zionism. They constitute a capitulation to our enemies, which has absolutely no justification in history, ethnology or the facts of everyday life, and if they were admitted by the Jewish people as a whole, the result would only be that the terrible situation of our coreligionists in Russia and Romania would become the common lot of Jewry throughout the world.

As Isaac Deutscher wrote in The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays:

the great majority of East European Jews were, (up to the outbreak of the second World War) opposed to Zionism … the most fanatical enemies of Zionism were precisely the workers, those who spoke Yiddish … they were the most determined opponents of the idea of an emigration from East Europe to Palestine … in the idea of an evacuation, of an exodus from the countries in which they, had their homes and in which their ancestors had lived for centuries, the anti-Zionists saw an abdication of their rights, a surrender to anti-Semitism. To them anti-Semitism seemed to triumph in Zionism, which recognised the legitimacy and the validity of the old cry ‘Jews get out!' The Zionists were agreeing to get out.

As anti-Semitism increased in Poland so did support for Zionism wane. In the last local elections in 1938, out of the 20 Jewish Council seats in Warsaw 17 were won by the anti-Zionist Bund and just one by the Zionists. Everywhere in Poland it was the same story. Zionism was seen as a capitulation to anti-Semitism.

Gilheany’s conspiracy theories about Stalinism and the Soviet Union lying behind the revelations of Nazi-Zionist collaboration are absurd. It wasn’t Stalin who was responsible for the fall of the second Sharrett government in Israel in 1955 but the verdict in the Kasztner libel trial, brought as a result of the accusations of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust against the leader of Hungarian Zionism that his collaboration had led to the deportation of thousands of Hungarian Jews. It is a fact, amply documented by Zionist historians such as Francis Nicosia and Lucy Dawidowicz, that the Zionists were the favoured Jews of the Nazis, the ones who traded with them not campaigned against them.

Zionism is and always has been a reactionary movement and ideology. Today that should be clear to all when the best friends of Israel are anti-Semitic leaders like Trump, Orban and Duterte. When even the neo-Nazi founder of the alt-Right in the United States, Richard Spencer openly boasts that he is a White Zionist and Netanyahu’s own son pens an anti-Semitic cartoon of George Soros that is immediately republished by David Duke of the KKK then it should be clear why Gilheany’s attempts to portray the Left as anti-Semitic are, to quote Neil Young, pissing in the wind … Socialist Zionism was always an oxymoron, today it is simply a bad joke.

15 comments:

I can only speak for myself, but I hope you keep writing pieces for TPQ Tony. I for one am getting educated, from the inner workings of the JLM, BLP and the rest. I have always tried to argue that Zionism is bollicks, you can put it a lot better than most here..Unlike Barry you have multiple sources that make your argument water tight.

I am going back to read your piece again. Truth is I will have to read it a few times to fully understand.

Here is a link to the case of Ian Humphreys expelled from the Labour Party falsely alleging that, among others, Jess Phillips MP received £1m from the "Israeli Lobby". I picked up on the Facebook pages of the recently formed Socialists Against Antisemitism; an excellent source of information from the left on the dynamics of antisemitism in the BLP.

I will comment in due course, although I am in no hurry to do so, on the pastiche of half-truths, insinuations and conspiracist nonsense that Tony Greenstein (I do the honour of addressing you, Tony, by your forename and not by your surname which you adress me by as if I was an inmate of Long Kesh/Maze or a first year at the Christian Brothers).

But for now I reiterate that while I support the existence of the State of Israel on the basis of the UN General Assembly that brought it into being; I am totally opposed to settlements on the West Bank and the often racist behaviour of the settlers and to the populist right-wing drift of the Netananyu govt and of foreign policies of past and present Israeli govts. I am sure that that statement would have the full support of both the JLM and Socialists Against Antisemitism not least because neither would argue that it is antisemitic (or even antizionist) to do so unlike Trump and Netananyu.

Contrary to the defamatory language (don't worry I am not seeking the services of Sir Peter Carter-Fuck as LOTTO are doing) that Frankie used in another thread, I have never defended the actions of the IDF that have led to the deaths on innocent, unarmed Palestinian Arab civilians.

I have never claimed or sought to claim that antizionism automatically equates to antisemitism nor have authors like Dave Rich and David Hirsch who work (from the left) in the area of contemporary left antisemitism. Their concern is the possible anti-Jewish consequences of antizionsist discourse and practice such as the banning of Jewish societies on university campuses in the 1970s and 1980s after the UN Zionism is Racism resolution of 1975 and, more recently the isolation of Jewish academics in the UCU in the 2000s deemed to be too loyal to Israel.

The most telling critique of antizionist ideology comes from David Hirsch when he comments on its utter failure to take into account the transformative effect; the materiality of the Shoah/Holocaust on the critical mass of Jewish people who saw it as evience of the failure of the international community to prevent their annihilation and so for them; the only sure means of security, protection and prosperity was a national homeland shortly to become Israel; the alternatives of Bundism, assimilations and worldwide proletarian revolution having either failed or failed to happen. This is not to minimise or justify the tragedy of the Nakba for the Palestinian Arabs; a catastrophe which would have been avoidable had the rest of the Arab world been willing to accept a Jewish presence in the Middle East and had the Palestinians Arabs had more astute leadership.

Yes, I can understand how the idea of a Jewish and democratic state may sound paradoxical to some. But look across the MENA region as a whole and one sees (apart from Tunisia, the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Northern Iraq and Rojava Kurdish enclave in Syria) nothing but ethno-religious and tribal states with Generals, family dynasties and absolute monarchies with secret police forces in tow.

I can assure you, Frankie, that I have multiple sources of my own to make my arguments robust; sources which do not originate from KGB or FIS misinformation.

This is not to minimise or justify the tragedy of the Nakba for the Palestinian Arabs; a catastrophe which would have been avoidable had the rest of the Arab world been willing to accept a Jewish presence in the Middle East and had the Palestinians Arabs had more astute leadership.

So let me get this straight Barry, Nabka was the Palestinians fault because they didn't have astute enough leadership and the Arab world wouldn't accept a Jewish presence in the Middle East..? There has been a Jewish presence in the Middle East for 1,000's of years. What the Arab world, Jews in the Middle East and loads more refused to accept then and today is a Zionist state imposed on Palestinians.

Yes, I can understand how the idea of a Jewish and democratic state may sound paradoxical to some. But look across the MENA region as a whole and one sees

Barry there is no such thing as a democratic state anywhere on this rock. Some places give you a better deal than others but that's about the height of it. Why do you refuse to accept the Clinton's involvement in a region of Arkansas called MENA?

(apart from Tunisia, the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Northern Iraq and Rojava Kurdish enclave in Syria) nothing but ethno-religious and tribal states with Generals, family dynasties and absolute monarchies with secret police forces in tow.

Barry forget about the Middle East for a minute. What can you see out your front window? Can you see people separated along ethno-religious and tribal states by Generals and family dynasties control by absolute monarchies with secret police forces in tow?

When I look outside my window I can see working class people separated along CNR/PUL (ethno-religious)' lines by an oxymoron. 'Tribal States', reads to me like New Lodge/Tigers Bay, Falls Road/Shankill Road, Upper/Lower Ardoyne. The 'the family dynasties and absolute monarchies', do you mean the Rothschild family dynasty and the absolute monarchy of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha? The secret police force reads to me as Mi5/6, RUC special branch.

None of my sources originate from originate from KGB or FIS sources. Not unless the Diaries of Theodor Herzl, Ben Hecht’s Perfidy, Jewish Voice for Peace’s On Anti-Semitism etc. were penned by the KGB. Hecht who first revealed the sordid collaboration of Kasztner in Hungary was a Revisionist Zionist, an anti-communist.

I have to confess that if Barry Gilheaney’s main source of evidence about ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party is the allegation that Jess Phillips received £1 million from the Israel lobby then you are skating on very thin ice. Presumably Ian Humphries retailed in a garbled way the evidence in the Al Jazeera programme The Lobby that Joan Ryan, Chair of Labour Friends of Israel was being thrown £1m to bribe Labour MPs into going on expenses paid trips to Israel and no doubt other dirty work.

In any case I don’t see why this allegation was anti-Semitic. Jess Phillips is a reactionary non-Jew. She isn’t Jewish. How can an allegation against her be anti-Semitic unless what is meant is that criticism of the Israel Lobby, which exists, is in itself anti-Semitic.

I am incidentally happy to address Barry by his first name but my experience of most Zionists is that they are abusive bastards as well as being liars. Terms like ‘self hater’ ‘kapos’ and other neo-Nazi terms trip off their tongues.

Barry says he supports the existence of the State of Israel on the basis of UN resolution 181. But the UN had no authority to dispose of the land of Palestine by handing over more than half of it to the Zionists anymore than Arthur Balfour had the right to promise the land of Palestine to the Zionist movement.

Barry says he is opposed to the settlements on the West Bank but Israel was created through settlements which were little different to those on the West Bank. The Kibbutzim, the collective Labour settlements, sponsored and set up by the arch racist and eugenicist Arthur Ruppin, were Jewish only just like the West Banks settlements.

That is why after 1967 the core of the Gush Emunim (Greater Israel – Bloc of the Faithful) settlement movement came from the old Kibbutzniks of Ahdut Ha’avodah (Yitzhak Tabenkin, Israel Galili and so on). It was the Israeli Labour Party (Mapai) under Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon which established the first settlements. They it was who colonised the West Bank and expelled 300,000 Palestinians and demolished 3 Palestinian villages including the ancient Imwaus to make way for the Jewish National Fund’s Canada Park.

Barry speaks of the ‘often racist behaviour of the settlers’. That is a nice way of putting the ongoing violence, attacks on children, poisoning of water sources, outright theft of land and ‘price tag’ attacks. What is occurring is a reign of terror that Barry and his JLM mates are supporting via the use of the false anti-Semitism charges levelled against Palestinian supporters.

As for the ‘the populist right-wing drift of the Netananyu govt and of foreign policies of past and present Israeli govts’ this is a nice way of putting it. How about the Deputy Defence Minister Eli Dahan’s description of Palestinians as animals or the genocidal comments of Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked or the attempt by Netanyahu to unify the far right with the Judeo-Nazi Otzma Yehudit which advocates the physical expulsion of all Arabs, including Israeli Arab citizens and making sexual relations between Jew and Arab a criminal offence?

What Netanyahu and his far-Right government is doing is the logical culmination of the past record of Israeli Labour governments. Indeed both Herzog and then Gabbay (ILP leaders) discussed the formation of a national unity government with Netanyahu very recently.

When Netanyahu ran his campaign to expel 40,000 Black African refugees from Israel because they were neither Jewish nor White, the ILP gave him their full support.

The Jewish Labour Movement have done nothing else but accuse anti-racists and anti-Zionists of ‘anti-Semitism’ over the past 4 years – from Livingstone to Chris Williamson. Any criticism of Netanyahu and his ilk was treated as ‘anti-Semitism’.

I have no knowledge of whether or not Barry has defended the actions of the IDF. However the JLM and Labour Friends of Israel have. These 2 groups are interchangeable but there is a division of work between them – LFI defend Israel and JLM attack supporters of the Palestinians as anti-Semitic. However JLM officers and sponsors such as Louise Ellman have gone out of their way to defend Israel’s murder not just of Palestinian civilians but children too.

The detestable Louise Ellman, three times during the Parliamentary debate on children on 6 January 2016 defended the Israeli military’s practices in respect of children – kidnapping in the early hours of the morning of children as young as 12, blindfolding them, taking them to detention centres in places where they had no access to parents or lawyers, beating and sexual harassment and then being forced to sign confessions in a language, Hebrew that they didn’t understand.

It is these bastards that Ellman defended, in her role as Vice Chair of the JLM. And when I accused her of being a supporter of Israeli child abuse that was one of 3 reasons for my expulsion I was expelled, a Jewish person as a result of complaints by your racist friends Barry in the JLM.

I am not interested in whether or not Barry Gilheaney has said that anti-Zionism ‘automatically’ equates to anti-Semitism. What is clear is that the Zionist movement, including the JLM, has never made a differentiation between anti-Zionism, opposition to the racist State of Israel and Zionism and anti-Semitism. The fact that Barry uses the weasel word ‘automatically’ is a clue. In other words it’s normally the case that it is anti-Semitic but not always.

The IHRA which the JLM has pushed does indeed make anti-Zionism in practice equal anti-Semitism because it says the only criticism that is allowed of Israel is that similar to other ‘democratic’ countries. However for Palestinians Israel is not democratic and so any fundamental criticism of Jewish ie a Jewish Supremacist state is automatically anti-Semitic.

So in essence what the JLM is saying is that most of those Jews who died in the Holocaust were anti-Semitic which might explain why Zionism was indifferent to the Holocaust whilst it was happening.

Barry engages in more weasel words when he speaks of ‘the possible anti-Jewish consequences of antizionsist discourse’. Anti-Zionism was a Jewish reaction to Zionism. Zionism was everywhere welcomed by anti-Semite from Balfour to Churchill. Today the main supporters of Zionism are also anti-Semitic – Orban, Trump, Tommy Robinson, Katie Hopkins, Heinz Christian Strache, the neo-Nazi German AfD. After all if you don’t want Jews in your country then where better to send them than Israel?

David Hirsh has spent a lifetime trying to equate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Likewise the deeply dishonest Dave Rich has ploughed the same anti-Semitism = anti-Zionism furrow.

David Hirsh (note the spelling!) is a junk sociologist who has no support even among staff at his own college (Goldsmiths). His Engage group was revealed to have the funding of the Israeli state. Nothing he says is new. We are very aware of the effect of the Holocaust. What concerns me is how the Holocaust has been transformed into an ideological weapon of defence and attack by Israel to justify its horrific practices such as arming the Burmese Junta, breaking the anti-Apartheid embargo in South Africa and training the Guatemala Junta to exterminate 200,000 Mayan Indians.

Israel does nothing for Jews. When the Argentinean Junta between 1976-1983, a neo-Nazi Junta, tortured to death up to 3,000 Jews Israel said nothing. Why? Because the Junta was anti-Communist and was engaged in a profitable arms trade with Israel. Indeed Israel supplied Argentina with most of its weaponry during the Falklands/Malvinas war of 1982.

Zionism is a thoroughly reactionary and racist ideology and regardless of whether it covers itself in a ‘Labour’ cloak or not its fundamental nature has not changed. It is no accident that the JLM today is allied with the anti-Corbyn forces.

Care to reply to this expose of your style of writing, rexsearch and, most importantly, your commitment to proper historiography? TPQ may or may not wish to read it and arrive at their own conclusions. Plenty of material for future articles for me on this blog:

Tony - again a very forceful and compelling response. A number of people have commented on how they have benefited from the exchange. The perspective that seeks to conflate anti-Semitism with Anti-Zionism needs called out.

Jacobo Timmermann in his book on being detained in Argentina conveys the sense of hatred the regime there had for the Jews. Seems too the Israeli state was backing the Hutu Power movement in Rwanda.

Barry Gilheaney being unable to make any substantive response to my article or say anything of his own volition demonstrates how transparent he is. In short he is a windbag whose articles were simply ghostwritten Zionist hasbara (propaganda).

Instead of responding to what I wrote, which he couldn't do, he instead tries to attack me on the principle of if you can't attack the message then attack the messenger.

Unfortunately (for Gilheaney) he refers to the notorious Islamaphobe and anti-Communist Paul Bogdanor, son of the famous British constitutionalist, Vernon Bogdanor.

This is really pathetic Gilheany. You expose yourself as having nothing to say of substance. If you really think that Bogdanor 'exposes' me you only demonstrate how pathetic you are.

Of course I'm not commenting on Bogdanor's febrile attack on me. Anyone reading it should be able to make their own judgements.

But here are a few examples of Bogdanor's 'exposes'. There is 'The Top 250 Chomsky Lies' by Paul Bogdanor Version 1.1http://www.paulbogdanor.com/200chomskylies.pdf

Noam Chomsky, the world famous linguist who has been prime in calling out the evils of US imperialism in Central and Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, is denounced by Bogdanor because Bogdanor is what is usually known as a fascist.

Or feast on The Chomsky Hoax http://www.paulbogdanor.com/chomskyhoax.html

Bogdanor is a contributor to The Anti Chomsky Reader https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anti-Chomsky_Reader edited by David Horowitz. Horowitz is the editor of Frontpage.com a virulently anti-Islamic and far right internet journalhttps://www.frontpagemag.com

The latter is defined as a hate organisation by the Southern Poverty Law Centre. Ie it is a white supremacist and racist organisation. It includes amongst its contributors Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, banned from visiting the UK with Pamela Geller because they are extreme Islamaphobes.

Bogdanor also writes for Frontpage.com

It would seem that Gilheaney is happy to fish in any sewer if it enables him to attack anti-Zionists and anti-racists. In short Gilheaney is a fraud and yes a racist.

you mention Israel's involvement in supporting the Hutus in Rwanda. It wouldn't surprise me though I have no particular knowledge of this. In Argentina as you say Israel was in league with a neo-Nazi Junta which tortured to death up to 3,000 Jews. However Israel did not issue one peep about genuine antisemitism.

Yes I've read Timmerman's very moving book. Today Israel supplies the Burmese regime with weapons. There is literally no genocidal and racist regime that the Israeli state doesn't support.

Do not worry, I have not gone away (you know). I am well aware of your long history of historical falsification. And when you call me a racist; well we ascend while you you descend into the gutter of personal abuse.

Tony, I will give you a heads up Barry has two main poster girls one is Hillary Clinton and the other is 'Fearless' Jess Philips (Barry calls her that).....This is Barry's blog where he blogs sometimes I guess..

Barry,

And what is the link with Israel/Palestine, Frankie. How has Laura lied?

That comment just adds weight to my argument about me believing you did not learn how to think critically at Uni. After what Frank Dub, Henry Joy and myself have linked directly from Laura's own work and you still want me to think she is a Snow White?.. Someone who is a Jew, teaches kids and adults about the horrors of WW2 etc. and you want me to believe she knows fcuk all about Palestine? Get with the program.

Likewise what is your peer-reviewed mdedico-social eviddence for your contention that "Nationalism is a biological drive" and that "People who are genetically similar wish to live among their own". Not Mein Kampf surely?

What about common sense and simple observations Barry instead of peer-reviewed mdedico-social evidence, that as a rule of thumb people who are genetically similar wish to live among their own. Take for examples how prisoners segregate themselves in any prison you care to mention because they want to be with people who are genetically the same/same ideologies. All prisons work along the same lines from the USA, South East Asia, South America. England …. In the six counties both Republican and Loyalist prisoners being the most obvious example of people who are genetically similar who wish to live among their own. Step outside of Maghaberry Prison and you could choose any town or village in the six counties you care to mention and you will see the same rule of thumb being played out where genetically similar people wish to live together.' Go further a field to any major developed city on this rock and you will find a similar stories. There are parts of London where English isn't even the 2nd language because non English speaking people who moved to London for one reason or another searched out communities with people who are genetically similar to themselves and they wish to live together. French cities it is the same and most cities in the USA, Germany..take you pick there are lots to choose from. The animal kingdom works more or less along the same lines.

I know there is some cross pollination between different races, creeds, what ever and when it is not forced it works. We both know Israel separates people who are “ genetically similar wish to live among their own".

it seems to me that you see the hand of George Soros behind them.

Barry, when are you going to accept even George Soros admits he is a cunt (just over 6 mins long and listen to what he says).

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Anthony McIntyre

Former IRA volunteer and ex-prisoner, spent 18 years in Long Kesh, 4 years on the blanket and no-wash/no work protests which led to the hunger strikes of the 80s. Completed PhD at Queens upon release from prison. Left the Republican Movement at the endorsement of the Good Friday Agreement, and went on to become a journalist. Co-founder of The Blanket, an online magazine that critically analyzed the Irish peace process. Lead researcher for the Belfast Project, an oral history of the Troubles.